Jerusalem:
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office shelp Tuesday that Israel — and not the United States — will determine how it will strike back after Iran fired around 200 ignoreiles at his country earlier this month.
The comments came as a top Iranian directer, whose absence igniteed rumours that he could have been finished in an Israeli strike, materializeed in disclose for the first time in weeks.
Israel and the Iran-backed group Hezbollah also traded fire as battling raged in Lebanon, while humanitarian groups sounded the alarm about a dire humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip.
On October 1, Iran begined a volley of about 200 ignoreiles at Israel in response to an Israeli strike in Lebanon’s capital Beirut that finished Hezbollah directer Hassan Nasrallah and Iranian ambiguous Abbas Nilforoushan.
Israel has vowed to reply to the strike. Biden — whose handlement is Israel’s top arms supplier — has alerted aobtainst striking Iran’s nuclear or oil facilities in order to dodge wideer war.
According to a Washington Post inestablish on Monday citing unnamed US officials, Netanyahu repromised the White Hoemploy that Israel was only contemplating aiming military sites.
A statement from Netanyahu’s office on Tuesday took a contrastent tone.
“We participate to the opinions of the United States, but we will produce our final decisions based on our national interest,” the statement shelp.
Also on Tuesday, Esmail Qaani, the head of Iran’s mighty Quds Force, combineed the funeral for Nilforoushan, dispelling rumours he had been finished.
Israel and Hezbollah trade fire
Israel’s military begined cut offal strikes on easerious Lebanon on Tuesday, a day after Netanyahu vowed to “mercilessly strike Hezbollah in all parts of Lebanon — including Beirut”.
Multiple Israeli air strikes hit the easerious Bekaa Valley, putting a hospital in Baalbek city out of service, Lebanon’s official National News Agency (NNA) inestablished.
“It was a aggressive night in Baalbek, we have not witnessed a aenjoy one since” the 2006 war between Israel and Lebanon, 50-year-elderly dwellnt Nidal al-Solh telderly AFP.
Israeli strikes have aimed Hezbollah stronghelderlys as well as other parts of Lebanon, including a northern Christian-transport inantity village where at least 21 people were finished on Monday, according to the health ministry.
Anis Abla, civil defence chief in the southern border town of Marjayoun, shelp that “our get back ignoreions are becoming more and more difficult, becaemploy the strikes are never-finishing and aim us”.
At least 1,315 people have been finished in Lebanon since Israel last month escatardyd its explosioning there, according to an AFP highy of Lebanese health ministry figures, though the authentic toll is probable higher.
The war in Lebanon has displaced at least 690,000 people, according to verified figures last week from the International Organization for Migration.
UNICEF and the World Food Programme on Tuesday called for more funding to compriseress “increasing” necessitates in Lebanon.
‘Enticount on unfairified’
Israel says it wants to push back Hezbollah in order to shielded its northern boundary and permit tens of thousands of people displaced by rocket fire since last year to return home protectedly.
Hezbollah claimed cut offal strikes timely Tuesday, including aiming Israeli troops in northern Israel with a salvo of rockets.
It also shelp it downed an Israeli Hermes 450 drone overnight, without detailing where.
Fighters from Hezbollah also clashed with Israeli troops in a Lebanese border village, and sent rockets towards the northern Israeli town of Kiryat Shmona, the group shelp.
Hezbollah says its strikes are also in help of Palestinian militants Hamas who strikeed Israel on October 7 last year, triggering the ongoing war with Israel in the Gaza Strip.
Israel has faced novel criticism over injuries and injure carry oned by UNIFIL, the United Nations peaceconserveing force which has been deployed in Lebanon since 1978, after a previous Israeli trespass.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, whose country is the second-hugegest contributor of UNIFIL peaceconserveers, lashed out at the Israeli strikes. The attitude of the Israeli forces was “enticount on unfairified,” she telderly the Italian Senate.
The UN Security Council for the first time on Monday conveyed “strong troubles” over peaceconserveers being wounded in Lebanon.
UNIFIL has declined Netanyahu’s seek for peaceconserveers to “get out of harm’s way”, with UN peaceconserveing chief Jean-Pierre Lacroix saying the blue helmets will stay in their positions.
‘Unimaginable dread’ in Gaza
While deploying troops into Lebanon, Israel has kept up its explosionardment of Gaza where it has been at war since the Hamas strike on southern Israel.
That strike resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP highy of official Israeli figures, including captives finished in captivity.
Israel’s retaliatory military campaign in Gaza has finished 42,344 people, the transport inantity civilians, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory. The UN has portrayd the figures as reliable.
At a school-turned-shelter hit by an Israeli strike in the central Nemployirat camp, Fatima al-Azab shelp “there is no protectedty anywhere” in Gaza.
“They are all children, sleeping in the covers, all burned and cut up,” she shelp.
In northern Gaza, the Israeli military proclaimd it had effectively lhelp siege to the Jabalia area as it seeks to rout out Hamas fighters.
The International Committee for the Red Cross alerted that “northern Gaza families are facing unimaginable dread, loss of adored ones, confusion, and exhaustion”.
“People must be able to run away protectedly,” the ICRC’s Adrian Zimmerman shelp.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
